I have a friend. He's a finish carpenter and a true woodhead. He does some beautiful architectural woodwork.

He's also a dumpster diver. He collects stuff. He dives on his way to work, on his way home. He comes up with some really cool stuff on occasion. He has regular dumpster haunts.

I mention this as he showed up for dinner at our house the other night with a beautiful bouquet of flowers for my wife.. Mid dinner he announced they were a dumpster find.

Any other "dumpster divers" out there?

fltsfshr

 

Not me.

Long ago when I lived in VA, I used to work in a 7 Eleven. We had a painter who came in every day for coffee. He was a dumpster diver. Ended up getting more than he wanted when his "finds" were inhabited by a nice family of cockroaches.

 

Was your wife offended by where the flowers came from? I think I'd be a bit surprised, but probably not offended. It's amazing what peeps throw away. I find stuff on the shelf in our trash room fairly often.

 

My brother used to hit the cans on the street on trash day, in North Hollywood. I've never done it although I do put stuff out on trash day that gets taken before the truck comes. I threw away a blue painted folding table, that was at my house outside when I moved in. It was gone before the trucks showed up.

 

We have a big item trash pick up day every now and again. About 1/2 the stuff folks put out is gone before the trash truck comes.

Rick had this clock when I met him. It was an astrology clock with the moon kind of moving along...I never really liked it, and given that it was electric vs battery made it even worse with the cord hanging down.

We bought our house in 1985, and I don't think the clock ever saw the light of day once we moved in......it was in the basement or attic taking up space.

We finally put it outside a couple of years ago for the trash pick up day. It was one of the first things that was taken by the "dumpster diving" folks.

One man's trash is another man's treasure.....

 

Yes. Here at work. $$$$$ worth of "stuff". Seriously.

 

I know a person who "dives" every day. She looks for only one thing - thrown away lottery tickets. It seems in TN they re-do old non-winning lottery numbers on some regular basis. She with her garbage bags of old lottery numbers wins consistently amounting in some years to several thousands of dollars. She knows just where to go too.

 

I have a junk dealer that lives a few miles from me, (Crazy Wayne)
I call him, and he'll be there in 15 minutes. He doesnt care what it is.

 

The problem with dumpster diving, is you need to know the schedule of the dumpster pick up guy. Otherwise you go missing for ever (true story)

 

I've never actually picked anything out of the dumpster but at my town dump people usually put things that they are throwing out but think someone will want to the side usually in a clean bag. I"scored" a couple of christian dior ties from the dump but other than that not much else from the town dump. When I worked at the resort i got all kinds of stuff as we used to do garbage removal for the homeowners and they would put stuff aside for us. I've gotten a refrigorator, t.v's steros etc. we ven had someone throwout a three year old Ralph Lauren sectional couch!